Wednesday, March 22, 2006

March of the Administrators

What's the collective noun for administrators? Whatever it is, I've met it over the last few days. Wojtek's departure has focused for me just how crucial it is for us to have somebody working on admin - partly because I'm not very good at it myself, and partly because of time. It doesn't have to be a single full-time company administrator (though that's probably the ideal): and for the moment I'm looking at a number of models. Phill Ward, who's leaving Collage, has a scheme to administer a number of theatre companies, and that sounds like a good one if he can raise the funds for his own salary. Kath Gorman, who was our EU consultant, is now talking to me about some fundraising and working with a colleague of hers on marketing for Dis-Orientations (a really crucial one, this - since I really don't have time or knowledge, and it's ever more basic to the work). And Penny Mayes, who is setting up a new tour booking agency, wants to take on the Science project for next spring. All this is good news, of course, and focuses my own work, which would otherwise be rather haphazard at the moment as I wait for key decisions which will finally let things go ahead on the project. "They also serve who only stand and wait".

Josip sends me a DVD of a company working in France called "A fleur de peau". It's run by a Brazilian choreographer called Denise Namura and her German colleague Michael Bugdahn. Wonderful work: at times very reminiscent of Pina Bausch in its blend of the balletic and the mundane - I feel very close to this desire to show theatrically what is happening spiritually underneath the drab details of our daily lives. Josip's suggestion is that we should look at involving them in the Laboratory: and, as usual, I think he's right.